Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Shtayyeh Resigns

Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday that he has officially submitted his government’s resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas.

“I submitted the government’s resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas on February 20, 2024, and today I submit it in writing,” Shtayyeh said in a statement. 

The PA prime minister explained at the beginning of the weekly Cabinet session held on Monday in the city of Ramallah that “this decision comes in light of the political, security, and economic developments related to the aggression against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and the unprecedented escalation in the West Bank, including the city of Jerusalem.”

“It comes in light of what Palestinian people, our Palestinian cause, and our political system are facing from a ferocious and unprecedented attack, genocide, attempts at forced displacement, starvation in Gaza, intensification of colonialism, colonizers’ terrorism, and repeated invasions of camps, villages, and cities in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Shtayyeh said.

“Accordingly, I see that the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the emerging reality in the Gaza Strip, the national unity talks, and the urgent need for an inter-Palestinian consensus based on a national basis, broad participation, unity of ranks, and the extension of the Palestinian Authority’s sovereignty over the entire land of Palestine,” Shtayyeh added in the statement.

Shtayyeh’s statements reportedly come as United States pressure grows on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to restructure the PA and create the conditions to govern a future Palestinian state following the war.

Last December, Reuters news agency reported that “a succession of top US officials” had traveled to the West Bank “to meet with Mahmoud Abbas in the hope the 88-year-old – a spectator in the war between Israel and Hamas – can overhaul his unpopular Palestinian Authority enough to run Gaza after the conflict.”